


take two

by nasa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Break Up, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 12:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasa/pseuds/nasa
Summary: Tony’s on a business trip when the Rogue Avengers return from exile.





	take two

Tony’s on a business trip when the Rogue Avengers return from exile.

His timing is, of course, deliberate: Tony can barely stand to think about what’s happening with the team, so to see it up close would be far too much. Just the idea - the idea of really seeing how shattered everything is, seeing the looks on their faces, the awkward way they’d walk around the Compound, taking in the changes -

Tony’s heart has taken enough trauma his year already.

So instead of staying at the Compound, while the Rogue Avengers are finding their footing and reacquainting themselves with their old home, Tony’s in Japan. He rubs elbows with investors, patiently reviews patent law, politely refuses shots of sake without mentioning his alcoholism. He inquires after college-aged grandchildren and offers meek congratulations on impending retirement. It is mundane but too boring, and the whole time he can’t stop thinking about what must surely be going on back in the States.

His first night there, he doesn’t sleep. Instead, he stays up all night and tinkers with half-made blueprints. The second night, he drifts off while watching the news, and dreams he’s floating through space, blackholes spinning around him in place of stars. He feels cold, and breathless, and it’s only when he looks down that he realizes there’s a jagged line cut through the chest of the suit, leaving him exposed to the perfect vacuum of space.

When he looks up again, Steve is perched above him, glowering, shield hefted above his head.  _I never loved you,_ he hisses.  _You’re a pathetic, lonely little man, and you deserve everything you got._ Then he stabs his shield down into Tony’s suit, through the arc reactor, through his skin, through his ribcage and through his frantically beating, burning heart, until Tony’s whole body is severed in two.

Tony wakes up gagging. He just barely manages to make it to the trash can before he’s heaving up his minuscule dinner, his nonexistent lunch, and what feels like all the bile contained in his body. He dry-heaves for a good while after that, too, until finally his stomach relaxes enough for him to slump back against the wall. It’s still dark in the room, but for the grainy blue-grey light from the still-running television; two in the morning, maybe. Could be three.

Tony’s heart is beating like a rabbit in his chest, so he knows any chance at sleep is lost for the night. Instead, he takes a shower so cold it makes his teeth chatter, then wraps himself in blankets, turns on all the lights, and watches mind-numbing infomercials until morning.

The trip is only six days long, but by the end of it, Tony is utterly exhausted. Every night, when he tries to sleep, he is woken by shaking black nightmares, so absolute and heart-wrenching that he gives up entirely on trying to prevent them. In a way, it’s funny: he used to not be able to sleep well without Steve in the room, and now, less than a year later, just the thought of him makes him heart beat triple-speed in terror.

When Tony finally gets to board his private plane back to New York, he’s almost relieved. Nothing is worse than anticipation, after all, and Tony is half-convinced he’s all built this up in his head to be something it’s not. Maybe it was just a dream, he finds himself thinking. Maybe he’s so tired that his mind has snapped and he’s confused fact and fiction, and he’ll come home to the compound to find Steve waiting for him with a smile and his warm hands, pull Tony into a kiss and tuck him under his heavy, hand-sewn quilt and curl up beside him until serene episodes of Planet Earth send them both dropping off to sleep.

But of course life never was that generous.

He only makes it an hour at the Compound before he runs into Steve. He’s in the kitchen, having been dragged there by Rhodey has soon as he’d landed so they could make dinner. Or try to, anyway - Rhodey still struggles to keep himself upright long enough to use a stovetop, and Tony has never been able to do more than burn instant ramen, neither of which is exactly conducive to a five-star dinner.

Still, the simple companionship does a lot towards working the knots out of Tony’s chest, and he’s actually laughing at something Rhodey says when he turns to grab something out of the fridge and sees him. Steve. Hovering in the doorway, biting his lip, hands curled up in his pockets. He looks nothing like the Steve who had crouched over Tony and slammed his shield into the armor, over and over again, until the arc reactor broke. But he doesn’t look like Tony’s Steve either.

Tony’s heart feels suddenly hot in his chest.

“Hey, Cap,” Rhodey says when he spots him. “You want some pasta? We’ve got extra.”

Steve tears his gaze away from Tony to Rhodey. “That’s okay, I wouldn’t want to impose,” he says. “I just wanted to grab a quick snack before bed.”

Rhodey wobbles out of the way obligingly so Steve can pull a granola bar and a package of cookies out of the cabinet. The whole time, he keeps shooting Tony these little glances, like he can’t help himself, but Tony stays motionless, gaze locked on the tile. He focuses on regulating on breathing, his heart rate, trying to stay calm.  _Count to ten,_ a therapist had told him once.  _Count to ten, and breathe._  It’s never worked before, and it doesn’t work now, but Tony holds onto it anyway, repeating over and over in his head:  _one, two, three, four._ What else does he have to do?

Finally, Steve leaves. Only then does Tony let the numbers fall away and allow himself to shake, allow his breaths to come ragged and rough in his chest. “Hey,” Rhodey says, but his voice is dimmed as if by a great distance. “Hey, Tony, breathe -“

It’s the first panic attack Tony has had for almost two years. It leaves him feeling weak and ugly, like a grimy worm vomited out of some poor bird’s mouth. This is what dying feels like. He wishes he weren’t so acquainted with the sensation.

“Is there anything I can do?” Rhodey asks afterwards, and Tony shakes his head. After all, what can be done, really? Banishing Steve from the premises? Running away again? Tony doesn’t have any options other than to stick around and learn to deal with the pain.

-

Compared to Steve, Tony’s reunions with the rest of the Avengers are anticlimactic at best. Wanda stays overseas, where she’s joined by Vision, and Barton returns to his agricultural retirement, leaving just Sam and Natasha arriving at Steve’s side. Sam, Tony runs into at the gym, when he comes to check on Rhodey during physiology. “Hey, man,” Sam says when he spots Tony. He makes a face like he’s going to say something Tony doesn’t want to hear, so Tony interrupts before he can.

“You helping Sourpatch firm up?” he asks. “Turn those jelly buns into muscle?”

Rhodey makes a face. “You’re such an ass, Tones,” he says.

“You love my ass,” Tony says, making a kissy-face in Rhodey’s direction to emphasize his point. “My ass is fabulous.”

They bicker for a while longer, Sam hovering somewhat awkwardly on the sidelines, before Tony heads back off to his lab, figuring Rhodey’s rehab is covered. He throws an easy wave behind his shoulder as he goes, and, out of the corner of his eye, sees Sam mimic it. Sam doesn’t have a chance to say whatever he wanted to say, and he never brings it up later, either, always preferring to engage Tony in conversation about the suit or his wings or Rhodey’s recovery. Tony’s glad.

Natasha is even simpler than Sam: she just slides back into Tony’s life as if she’d never left it. He sees her in the living room, the afternoon after he returns, reading a book, and she offers him a seashell sliver of a smile. A few days later, he spots her out on a jog when he heads out on a test flight. The day after that, she’s in the kitchen when Tony comes out for breakfast, and they make easy small talk as they make their respective meals, before disappearing off to their own little dens of comfort.

Steve - Steve is more complicated. Tony ends up avoiding Steve more often than not.  He isn’t ready for this, and he tells himself he doesn’t feel bad about staying in his lab all day just so he doesn’t have to see Steve.

Tony’s good at avoiding people, so it works out that the first week back he only sees Steve twice: that first day, in the kitchen, and a second time passing by the communal living room during while some of the others were watching TV. He’d paused in the doorway, just wanting to glance in and see what was on before he headed back down to the lab, but instead he’d caught Steve’s eyes and found his breath stuttering in his chest. He hadn’t had a panic attack that time, though he had sat on his workshop couch for a good long while, staring at his white knuckled hands and reminding himself that Steve couldn’t hurt him anymore, that he was safe, that everything was fine.

 _I am Iron Man,_ Tony tells himself. That phrase has always meant a lot to him, but it seems doubly important now for some ethereal reason he can’t quite identify. That night on the perpetually-dirty workshop futon is when he first envisions a suit of armor embedded in his own body, something that could always be with him, so that he’s never left undefended. By the morning, he has his initial sketches of the Bleeding Edge.

After the semi-deliberate radio silence, Tony is expecting Steve to confront him. He imagines Steve will aim for neutral territory, and he’s right. Late one Thursday night, Tony resurfaces from his work to find the food supplies in the workshop have run bare. He stretches, tells Friday to order some more food, and heads up to the kitchen. There, in the dim light of the yellowing chandelier, Steve sits twisting his fingers together. He stops when Tony walks in the room, gaze going immediately to Tony’s face.

“Don’t get mad at Friday,” Steve says, when Tony pauses in the doorway. “I asked her not to tell you I was here.”

Tony swallows hard. “I need to change your privacy settings,” he hears himself say, and is proud of the steadiness of his voice. He turns away from Steve and towards the fridge, pulling it open under the guise of pursuing its contents, but his appetite is gone. His hands are trembling.

“I was hoping we could talk,” Steve says after a long moment.

Tony hums, still appraising the food inside the fridge. The asparagus is wilting. That’s not good. “Yeah? Talk about what?”

“Us,” Steve says. “This. What’s - happened between us.”

“You mean the things you did to us,” Tony says.

A pause. “Yeah,” Steve says finally. “That.”

Tony’s vision is blurring. He can’t tell if it’s from the bright light of the fridge straining his old eyes or something more pathetic. “I’m not sure I want to talk to you,” he tells the radishes.

“I get that,” Steve says. “I - I can’t say I would act any differently, if this were the other way around. But I wanted to let you know - I wanted to tell you -“

“What?” Tony demands, after Steve pauses a moment too long. He feels like something is squeezing at his chest, and he simultaneously wants to scream and do nothing at all.  _Why did you do this to us?_ he wants to ask.  _Why did you hurt me? Do you know I have nightmares? Do you know I wake up screaming your name?_   _Was it worth it?_

But he knows if he said that, he’d just break down in sobs.

Now, Steve sighs, like old paper rustling together. “I still love you, Tony,” he says softly. “I know you’re angry with me. Maybe furious. But I am going to do everything in my power to make this thing work. I’m not ready to give up on us yet.”

There it is again. The feeling of dying. Tony tightens his grip around the handles of the refrigerator and tries to regulate his breathing. One, two, three, four.  _I’m going to make this thing work._ Like Tony’s opinion doesn’t matter at all. Like he’s decided what’s going to happen, and what he says goes.

It strikes Tony, suddenly, like a stone to the chest: Steve will never change.

“Get out,” he rasps.

“Tony -“ Steve starts, as if to protest, and Tony shakes his head so hard his whole body sways with it.

“Get  _out,”_ Tony hisses, and after a too-long pause, he hears the scraping of a chair leg against tile. When he risks a glance over his shoulder, Steve is gone.

Tony slumps forward, intending just to rest his forehead against the top of the refrigerator, but he misestimates the height and goes slumping down instead. He curls on the kitchen tile in a triangle of fluorescent light and tries to breathe.

 _Fuck him,_ Tony finds himself thinking around the ragged clenching of his chest.  _Fuck him, that goddamn asshole._ But his heart isn’t in it.

Eventually, his breathing calms enough that he can climb to his feet and limp off to bed, but he doesn’t sleep for hours, instead lying awake and staring at the ceiling and replaying the last hour, the last day, the last ten years over and over again in his mind.  _What if, what if, what if._

—

After that night, Steve is around a lot more. Despite what Tony had thought was a pretty obvious rejection on his part, Steve seems to find every excuse to wiggle his way into Tony’s space: he shows up at the gym almost as soon as Tony arrives, slips into the lounge halfway through unofficial movie nights so he can perch half a couch down and ruin Tony’s concentration, even hand-delivering sandwiches and salads to the workshop, sometimes, the way he always used to do when he and Tony were together. Tony doesn’t mind Steve’s presence so much if there are other people in the room, but being alone with him makes the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck stand on end; he can’t relax. So, usually, when Steve brings by food, Tony doesn’t let him in. Instead, Steve leaves the food out in front of the door, a silent offering. Sometimes Tony eats it. More often, though, just the thought of it fills Tony’s chest with a resentful anger, because if anything, it’s just a reminder of how little Steve has changed. As always, he is larger than life, full of righteousness and confidence, willing to impose his will on the rest of the world regardless of whether or not they disagree with him.

Those days, Dummy throws the food away.

“Are you okay?” Rhodey asks one afternoon, after Dummy wheels in with a plate of pot pie and immediately dumps it into the garbage. Tony’s been down here for almost twelve hours, finalizing the last bits of Rhodey’s new armor and now fitting them to his frame, so he’s not surprised Steve decided to leave him some food. He’s not pleased either, though.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Tony asks.

Rhodey shakes his head. “It’s okay, you know.” He pauses a moment, as Tony messes with the fingers of his gauntlets. “If you can’t be around him. That’s normal.”

Tony huffs out a laugh, but it comes out hollow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Rhodey sighs. “Sure you don’t. Just - look, you know you can always come to me, right? If you need anything. Anything at all. I’m here for you.”

Finally, Tony forces his gaze up to meet Rhodey’s eyes and manages a tight smile. “Of course, honeybee,” he says. “Now bend your neck a bit, I want to see how this fit works.”

Despite the offer, though, Tony knows he’ll never go to Rhodey for help with this. How could he? Rhodey lost so much more than Tony did in that fight, and it wasn’t even his fault to begin with. For Tony to ask for comfort, for sympathy, over a battle he essentially caused - well. That wasn’t fair.

Keeping to himself isn’t an option either, though, he realizes after the third time in the same night he wakes up drenched in cold sweat and shaking. He throws the covers back and shivers as the cold air hits his skin. “Jarvis,” he rasps into the darkness, “Book me an appointment with a therapist.”

It’s only when Friday speaks that Tony remembers Jarvis is gone. “You got it, boss,” she says, voice soft and forgiving, and Tony wants to melt that little bit more into the blankets.

“As soon as possible,” Tony orders, then gets out of bed, turns on all the lights, and heads towards his workshop. If he can’t sleep, at least he can be productive; after all, what else is he supposed to do?

-

(The worst thing isn’t the nightmares or the flashbacks, the panic attacks or the way the anger seems to consume his body, burning at his skin from the inside out until he’s sure he’ll dissolve into ash. The worst part is the memory: the worst part is looking at Steve lips and thinking  _I want to kiss him._  The worst part is seeing Steve at the kitchen table and, for a split second, wondering what Steve is going to make him for breakfast.The worst part is waking up in a dark and cold bed and automatically reaching for the person beside him, aching for comfort from the same man who inflicted the pain.

The worst part is that despite all the shit he’s done, everything he’s put Tony through, Tony still loves him.)

-

Tony’s therapist is named Anna. She is short and blonde and skinny and, Tony thinks, Jewish, based on her last name:  _Abramowitz,_ a name like a sneeze. She’s kind.

She’s not nice, though, which is a distinction Tony learns early on in their sessions. “Nice is meaningless,” she tells him, heel tapping in the open air in a way that reminds Tony distinctly of Pepper. “I’m not always nice to my kid. But I’m always kind.”

It’s a distinction Tony hadn’t ever recognized before, but now that it’s been pointed out to him, one he can’t stop seeing. Rhodey is kind. Pepper is kind. Neither of them are particularly nice to Tony, at least not constantly - Tony’s gotten a few too many Louboutins shoved near his delicate areas to ever call Pepper  _nice -_ but they always look out for him. They want what’s best for him, want him to be happy, and that - well, that’s not something Tony can say about many people.

He certainly can’t say it about Steve, at least not now. Because as nice as Steve is being to Tony, with his hand-delivered meals and soft grins and fervent attention, he isn’t being kind. “He just - it’s like he’s decided for himself what I want,” Tony tells the therapist one particularly dark afternoon. “It’s like - it’s like I’m a child, and he’s decided what’s best for me and he’s going to act on it, whether I agree to it or not.”

Anna hums and sets down her pencil. “That sounds like an abusive relationship,” she notes. “Has he ever gotten violent with you?”

Immediately Tony’s mind flashes back to Siberia, frozen blood on the bunker floor, Steve’s heaving breaths crystallizing in front of him as he climbed off of Tony’s prone form.

“No,” he says. “Not really. Not in the way you’re thinking of. It wasn’t like that, he wasn’t - we just fought a lot. We’re both pretty stubborn people, you know.”

“I can imagine,” Anna says dryly. “You don’t get to be a superhero by being a pushover.”

Tony huffs out a laugh, but doesn’t say anything else. Anna watches him for a moment, and, uncomfortable, Tony diverts his gaze towards the window. It’s a new feeling, being stripped bare and told not to cover up. He knows what he should say, what he could say to leave this interaction and have her think of him the same way the newspapers do, as an arrogant, confident playboy with more money than god. He just doesn’t see the point anymore.

“Do you miss him?” Anna asks finally.

Tony blinks back sudden tears. “Every day,” he admits hoarsely.

“What about him do you miss?”

Tony blinks again, turns to face her. “I’m sorry?”

“What do you miss about him?” Anna asks again. “Clearly, you don’t think he’s perfect. Which is good - nobody is perfect, and if you’d had him built up in your head like that, that’d be a whole other complex we’d need to work through. But you don’t. You know he’s flawed, just like you or me or anyone else. So what is it about him that you miss? What makes him worth loving, despite the flaws?”

Tony looks away from her, back out the window. He can’t see much other than the edge of a brick corner and the rooftop of a nearby building, but the clouds drawn interesting patterns in their grey and white swirls. “He’s courageous,” Tony says finally. “He’s - the bravest person I’ve ever known. He’s generous. He’s funny - got this sarcastic, dry wit you’d never expect out of Captain America. And he - he just  _cares._ So much. About everything. There’s nothing - I’m cynical, you know, I’m the character in the movie with dark humor and a negative outlook on life who just sees the world as shades of grey, but Steve - he sees something else. He knows what he wants and he goes for it, and there’s no compromising, and - as, as absolutely infuriating as that can be, I an’t help but admire it, too.”

“Sounds like Steve has a lot of good traits,” Anna notes.

“Yeah, well.” Tony offers her a rough smile. “He is Captain America.”

She smiles back. “And you’re Iron Man.”

Tony’s smile fades. “Right,” he says. He looks back out the window.

-

The thing is, Steve used to treat Tony really well.

They had started dating after the Ultron debacle, and that in and of itself was a miracle, because Tony hadn’t thought Steve would forgive him after that. But he did, and more: as the months passed in the surprisingly small Compound, Tony found himself growing surprisingly close to Steve. When Steve finally asked him out, it was only after months of slippery flirting and the type of heated look that sent a flame to the base of Tony’s spine.

“Go out with me,” Steve had blurted suddenly one day, when Tony was halfway through sketching out blueprints for the new Quinjets.

“Seriously?” Tony had asked.

“Seriously,” Steve had confirmed. “Go out with me, Tony. Tonight.”

In the moment, Tony had just been excited to go on a date with him - excited that his gaydar hadn’t failed him so badly he’d mistaken fury for attraction - but later, he could look back on it and frown. It should have been a sign, the way it happened. Steve didn’t even ask, he just told, just like he did with everything else.

But then, he didn’t have real reason to be suspicious. He was happy, and Steve was happy, and it seemed as simple as that. Steve made dinner for Tony out of homemade bread and hand-pickled vegetables; he played Hangman with Tony over text during meetings; he even left his warmest sweaters all over Tony’s workbenches so that when Tony got cold or lonely, he could tug one on and feel Steve there.

Tony’s first birthday after they got together - his own birthday when they were together, as it turned out - Steve surprised him with a trip to the planetarium. It had been a bittersweet gift, because all afternoon, Tony had had to breathe slowly in and out to keep the wormhole from reappearing on the back of his eyes, but still, it was nice. Steve had clearly tried to think of something Tony would enjoy, and at least Tony got to feel Steve’s hand in his, warm and a little clammy, as he stared up at the stars he was sure would one day kill him.

“I love you,” Steve had whispered that night for the very first time. “I love you.”

Tony had wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pulled him closer, sliding a heel up the back of Steve’s thigh. “Fuck me,” he’d whispered, “Please, Steve -“

It wasn’t until later, when they lay together on the sheets, shining and panting, that Tony had murmured back, “I love you, too.” He hadn’t doubted it, at the time. He’d been so sure.

-

Steve shows up at Tony’s door a few days after Tony’s first session with Anna.

Tony hesitates before clicking on the intercom. “You need something, Steve?”

Steve fiddles with the notepad in his hands. To most people, he would look perfectly at ease, but Tony has known him too long not to see the strain of his shoulders and awkward hunch of his stance. He’s nervous.

“I was, uh, just wondering if I could come in for a bit? Just to sketch.”

“You want to sit here,” Tony says slowly. “And sketch.”

Steve nods. “Just for a little bit. But I understand if you don’t want me to.”

Tony takes a breath and runs through his options.  _What would Anna say he should do?_ he thinks briefly, but then pushes the thought out of his mind. What does it matter? Anna’s not here.

 _She’d say let him in,_ his mind says traitorously.

Fuck.

“Go ahead,” Tony says gruffly, waving a hand vaguely at one of Friday’s cameras. A moment later, the door hisses open, and Tony watches out of the corner of his eye as Steve slinks into the lab, sketchbook by his side.

Dummy whirs up to him, beeping like mad. “Oh, hey boy,” Steve says warmly, scratching behind Dummy’s sticky gear as Dummy continues to dance. “How are you doing? Learning good?”

“He’s learning fine,” Tony says, a bit too sharply, and Steve stills. For a moment, Tony almost feels bad, but it’s  quickly swallowed by jealousy: Dummy’s supposed to be his, not Steve’s. Dummy’s favorite is supposed to be him. Why should Steve get all of his affection?

“Uh, right,” Steve says. “I’ll uh - just sit over here, if that’s alright?”

Tony waves a hand. “Do whatever, Rogers.” He tries to focus on his work, but it’s hard, when Steve’s in the room: not only is Tony angry, he’s scared, afraid to turn his back on Steve in fear of what Steve might, however improbably, do.

But Steve just settles down on his stool and starts unpacking his pencils. After a moment, Tony hears the faint scratching of pencil on paper, and the Steve in the corner of Tony’s vision doesn’t move at all, as solid as a statue. He’s facing Tony’s direction, like he’s sketching something over here: Dummy, maybe, or You. Tony can only hope Steve isn’t sketching Tony himself.

Tony makes it almost thirty minutes, like that, working on his blueprints. He thinks he can handle it, at first. But the longer Tony stands there, the more the skin on the back of his neck tingles, and the tighter the knot in his stomach grows. He feels like there are ants crawling under his skin. After fifteen minutes, he puts a thumb to his wrist and measures his pulse: 85. Too fast for a resting heart rate. After twenty, it’s 90.  Twenty-five, it’s over 100.

Finally, Tony can’t take it anymore. He sets his pad down and braces his hands on the table. Immediately, Steve stills. So Steve was watching him, then.

“I’m sorry, but I need you to leave.”

The words are unexpectedly harsh in the quiet room. “Tony -“

“I’m sorry,” Tony says again. “But I can’t - it’s too -“ He cuts himself off, shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

There’s a pause before Steve sighs, an old thing. “I understand,” he says. He sounds so tired, Tony thinks, so painfully tired; Tony is tired of making people tired, tired of making people sad, but he doesn’t have the energy to stop. He doesn’t know how to stop. “I just - I’ll go.”

Tony bites his lip and doesn’t say anything else. Steve slinks out of the lab the same way he’d slunk into it, like a dog with its tail between its legs. A dog that lied to Tony, that broke his heart and almost killed him, a dog Tony will never be able to trust again.

Steve pauses in the door just before he leaves. “I’m sorry,” he says, flexing his fingers around the door frame. “I’m just -“ He shakes his head and ducks out, and the door swings shut behind him, leaving Tony alone with his machines.

-

“Do you still love him?” Anna asks one afternoon.

“Does it matter?” Tony counters.

“I think it matters quite a bit,” Anna says frankly. “And I think you know that.”

Tony grinds his jaw. He swears, these therapy sessions are single-handedly ruining his enamel; before he knows it, his dentist will be coming after him for improper care of his teeth, if he isn’t already furious at Tony along with the rest of America. “Yes,” he says finally. “Yes, I still love him. Happy?”

“Not really,” Anna says.

“What, you think I shouldn’t love him?” Tony asks, when Anna doesn’t say anything else. “You think he doesn’t deserve it, or something? Because believe me, I brought everything that happened onto myself.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re saying much of anything.”

Anna shrugs. “I mean, this isn’t really about my opinion, is it?”

“Yes, it is,” Tony argues. “That’s literally what this is, I’m paying you a hundred and fifty bucks an hour so you can tell me your opinion on how I fucked up my life.”

“Is that really all you think this is?”

Tony looks at her. He wonders, not for the first time, if she’s younger than he is. It’s possible, with her decidedly grey-free hair and barely-lined face. How did his life get so messed up that he needs a kid to tell him what to do?

“Yeah, okay, I still love him,” Tony says instead of answering her question. “I know it’s a bad idea, and I know I shouldn’t, but - but, yeah, I still love him.”

Anna hums. She doesn’t look upset or angry, but then she never does; like a blank canvas, she’s infinitely forgiving. “Why do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“Because I don’t trust him,” Tony says immediately. “I can’t. After everything that happened, after the way he’s still acting - you can’t have a relationship without trust.”

“But you can have love without trust,” Anna notes.

“Yeah, of course,” Tony says. “Or, well - for me, at least.”

Anna hums again. “Tell me something, Tony: is love a feeling, or a choice?”

Tony blinks, taken aback by the sudden shift in topic. “Um, well. I mean, a feeling, I guess. I don’t want to love Steve, and I wouldn’t choose it if there were another option.”

“But isn’t there, though?” Anna presses. She’s usually not this insistently, Tony thinks dimly, but this, for some reason, seems to be something she’s stuck on. Her eyes are blazing. “You could have stayed away.”

“I needed to be at the Compound -“ Tony starts.

“You could have lived in a separate wing from Steve,” Anna notes. “You could have lived on a separate floor. Hell, you have an AI that runs your life - it’d be easy for you to avoid Steve entirely even if you lived right next to him.”

“Well, yeah, but -“

“But you chose not to,” Anna continues. “You chose not to, because you thought it was worth it to give your relationship with Captain Rogers another shot. Romantically or not, you chose to house your love for him.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Tony says weakly, but suddenly he can’t think of a single counterargument to refute what Anna’s saying.

“Come on, now, Tony,” Anna says gently. “You’re a genius. This basic logic should be easy for you. You chose to act the way you did, because you chose to keep loving Steve. Just like you’re choosing to be here. Just like you’re choosing to trying to keep strengthening your relationship. Just like you can choose to trust him again, if you want to.”

“It’s not that simple,” Tony argues. His heart feels suddenly too-fast in his chest, like he’s on the precipice of a panic attack, dangling over. “I can’t just - he could hurt me again, he  _would_ hurt me again -“

“Then choose not to trust him,” Anna interrupts smoothly. “I’m not saying you have to choose to let him in. I’m not even saying it’s a good idea. It’s your life, Tony, and ultimately, you know more about what’s good for you than I do. But you shouldn’t be thinking about this in term’s of  _can’t_ s. You  _can_ trust Steve again, if you choose to. It’s a matter of choice.”

Tony blinks against the sudden pressing against the backs of his eyes. “I don’t think I can make that choice,” he says hoarsely.

“Oh, Tony,” Anna says softly, settling back in her chair. “Of course you can. You’re Iron Man.”

“What does that even mean?” Tony whispers.

Anna’s face may look young, but her eyes are so, so old. “It means you’re brave. It means you’re human.”

Tony takes a shaky breath.

“It means you’re Tony Stark.”

-

The thing is, Steve doesn’t trust Tony.

The thing is, nobody trusts anybody anymore. The thing is, everything seems to be on the brink of splintering. The thing is, no matter how carefully you walk, something will always shatter. Eggshells can’t support whole bodies, and this fragile peace can’t support a life.

It takes two months for Steve and Tony to have their first screaming match, which is honestly longer than Tony thought they’d last. But Tony was being avoidant, and Steve was being careful, and so the tentative truce had drawn out longer than Tony had thought.

Not infinitely, though.

“Will you quit that?” It’s Tony who snaps. Ever since the incident in the workshop, Steve’s been avoiding him; ducking away when he sees Tony coming into a room, even sometimes being so obvious as to look at Tony, stop what he’s doing, and walk right out. No matter what Tony says to him, no matter what Tony yells to his retreating back or tells Bucky, Steve won’t stay. “For fuck’s sake, it’s like you’re trying to piss me off.”

This time, Steve pauses in the doorway. They’re in the kitchen, just Steve and Tony and Steve’s half-eaten peanut-butter sandwich. “I’m doing this to help you.”

“Did I fucking ask you to?” Tony spits. “Did I tell you this was what I wanted?”

“It was pretty obvious.”

Tony huffs, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He feels a migraine coming on. Then again, it seems like he always has a migraine coming on, at least when Steve is around. “This is your fucking problem. Stop making decisions for me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything.

“Go on,” Tony says. “Say it.”

“That’s pretty funny, coming from you.” Steve’s voice is flat. He’s still facing away from Tony.

“You’re always making decisions for everyone else,” Tony says. “You decide what’s right and you don’t take anyone else’s opinion into effect. You’re not always right, Steve.”

“Neither are you.” Finally, Steve turns around, and his eyes are mad but his face is tired. He’s always so, so tired. “You make unilateral decisions too, Tony.”

“At least I’m trying to fix it,” Tony says. “What are you doing? How are you getting better?”

That seems to get to Steve, and his shoulders slump just slightly. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you,” he says again.

“Don’t be a fucking hypocrite,” Tony says, and brushes past Steve out the door, deliberately knocking their shoulders together. Tony’s skin feels like it’s burning where they touch, but he makes it down to his lab without so much as harsh breathing. He feels strong.  _I am Iron Man._

-

Steve stops avoiding him, after that.

It’s not much, at first, but at least it’s something. Steve stops running when Tony enters a room. He stops planning his day to avoid Tony. And, eventually, he starts seeking him out.

Team breakfast and team movie night. Lunches begin reappearing on Tony’s doorstep, and Steve shows up in the gym when Tony is doing yoga. They pass each other in hallways, and Steve manages a tight smile Tony is almost always able to mimic.

“I don’t want to make your life difficult,” Steve says one morning, when their orbits pass in the kitchen.

Tony pauses over his cup of coffee. “I know,” he says. He’s somewhat surprised to find he means it.

After that, it’s like an exponential equation, everything multiplied to power. Dropped off meals turn into drop off moments, Steve ducking into the lab for five or ten or fifteen minutes. The visits stretch to twenty, thirty, an hour, and one day, after Steve leaves, Tony tells Friday to inform Steve that the workshop is open for sketching, again, if he ever wants to come back. The next day, alongside with a croissant for Tony and a shiny red bow for Dummy, Steve brings paper and a pencil.

The icky feeling on the back of Tony’s neck doesn’t go away completely, but it fades. Tony’s heart rate slows. His anxiety dissipates. It’s there, but much less sharp, a camera out of focus. His chest is aching, but his mind is clear.  _I could do this,_ Tony finds himself thinking.  _I could live like this. This, and nothing more._ It’d almost be easy.

—

“I’ll stop.”

It’s a Thursday night. They’re in the lab, Steve and Tony; Tony is working, Steve sketching. They move around each other easily, quietly, a binary star system falling back into orbit.

Tony stills. “Stop what?”

“Stop - this.” Steve’s voice is rough. “I love you, Tony, I do, but I don’t make you happy.”

Tony swallows hard and forces himself to turn around. Steve’s a respectable distance away, the same distance a colleague might stand at, or a simple acquaintance. His eyes are dull. “I didn’t realize you cared about that.”

Steve gives a tiny flinch, almost a shiver. “I deserve that,” he says. “I’ve been messing this up. It just - gets mixed up in my head, sometimes, what it really means to love someone. But you - I really just want you to be happy, Tony. Happier than you are now. And if that means I need to get out of your life, then I’ll do it. Because I really do love you.”

Tony stares at Steve, and Steve stares right back. Tony’s lungs feel suddenly heavy in his chest. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Steve says. “I’m just - I’m sorry it took me so long. I’m so sorry, Tony.”

He’s so -  _young._ It’s all Tony can think, suddenly. Steve’s, what, thirty? When Tony was thirty he was a war profiteer. He woke up at three in the afternoon, drank until dinner, spent his free time building weapons and ignoring suspicious reports. Tony spent his thirties killing, accumulating blood on his hands until it dripped and dripped, a trail behind him on the carpet. Steve, for all his flaws, is trying. He’s trying so fucking hard. Tony thinks it must be exhausting, sometimes -  _knows_ it must be exhausting, because Tony is constantly trying just as hard. The only difference is that Tony is trying to make up for his past sins, whereas Steve just wants to do good.

Three months ago, Steve wouldn’t have apologized. Three months ago, Steve wouldn’t have said Tony was right. Three months ago, Steve never would have offered to stop fighting, to acceptance Tony’s opinions over his own. Three months ago -

Three months ago, Tony was tired, and now, he is tired, too. He’s so fucking tired. Working takes energy, and living takes energy, and fighting takes energy, and suddenly Tony can’t think of one good reason to keep this fight going. He’s tired. He’s trying. Steve is trying. That’s - that’s the best anyone can do.

“It’s okay,” Tony says. Steve blinks, eyes wide. “Don’t go.”

Steve’s throat bobs. “Tony,” he says, voice suddenly raspy. “I don’t -“

“I forgive you,” Tony interrupts smoothly. It goes against his therapist’s instructions, the interrupting, but he figures in this moment he’ll be forgiven. “And I miss you. I’m tired of fighting, Steve. I’m just - I’m tired. You’re right. I just want to be happy.”

“Tony,” Steve says again, like he can’t say anything else.

“Let’s be happy,” Tony says. “Can we do that? Can we just - be happy, Steve?”

“Oh, Tony,” Steve murmurs, and finally moves forward. He settles one hand on Tony’s shoulder, and Tony sways into him, his forehead to Steve’s shoulder. Steve wraps his other arm around Tony’s waist, settles his chin on Tony’s head. “Yeah,” he says. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need.”

Tony twists his hands in the loose fabric of Steve’s hoodie. Steve is quiet and warm underneath him, so still Tony can feel the heartbeat thrumming through his veins. Tony closes his eyes, and counts the beats,  _one, two, seventeen._ The old thrum of panic at Steve’s proximity is long gone, expired a dozen therapy sessions ago, and in its place is a still sort of calm. Tony wants this. He wants Steve. He wants to be happy.

He picks his future.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at nasafic.tumblr.com
> 
> (yes i added this to my tumblr collection originally but ultimately decided it was long enough for a standalone fic)


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